Category: Plans/Projects

Dr. Jonathan Foley, 50, executive director for Project Drawdown, joined me for a discussion about climate change (watch in the video player below). His statement, “This may be the single biggest business opportunity in human history,” sounds like hyperbole but there may be no one better qualified to make that statement correctly.

With a PhD in atmospheric sciences from the University of Wisconsin and having spent three decades doing and managing research into climate change, he is certainly qualified on the science. His case that the business opportunity is there hinges on this key premise:

We literally have to reinvent our energy systems, our food systems, our manufacturing, our cities. Everything! You can look at that is like, ‘Crap, that’s a really big problem.’ I think we have to look at as “Wow, what a great opportunity!” especially if we do it right. We can improve lives. We can reduce inequity. We could solve some of our other social ills if we do it wisely. And we could build a better world for future generations and for ourselves.

If we’re going to have to reinvent so much of our modern world, the investment opportunity does begin to be interesting. Clearly, the need for investment capital is there. What about getting a return on that capital?

Project Drawdown, initially led by Paul Hawken, created a list of 100 climate solutions and published it in the New York Times bestseller Drawdown. The team, now led by Foley, is in the process of updating the list and hopes to have that done before the end of the year.

Here’s what the list indicates about financial returns, according to Foley. “There are dozens and dozens of solutions. If we add them all together, they’re more than enough to stop climate change if we really deployed them at scale. And the preliminary kind of financial analysis is for every dollar we spend doing this we return three to four more back to the economy. That’s not even counting, avoiding the damages of really bad climate change in the future, which it could be untold trillions and trillions of dollars and literally hundreds of millions of lives affected.”

He says we must look past the familiar solar and wind renewables that dominate the discussion about climate change solutions—not that they don’t work—simply because we need more than that.

Foley highlights five areas that make up 90% of climate change drivers:

Electricity

Food, land use and forestry

Industry

Buildings

Transportation

In each of these areas there are opportunities for investors, businesses and entrepreneurs. Trillions will be spent and invested to reinvent the global economy to operate more sustainably.

The carbon impact of buildings is a mystery to some who are new to the climate conversation. Concrete is the biggest culprit, according to Foley. “If cement we’re a country, by the way, it would be the third largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world after China and the United States.”

Concrete doesn’t just require vast amounts of energy to produce, it also emits carbon throughout its life cycle. Entrepreneurs and investors, including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, are working on new chemical approaches to cement that will require less carbon or that may even be capable of absorbing it.

Electric cars represent a huge opportunity as well. Over the next decade, if Foley’s belief is correct, much of the fleet of vehicles on the road today will be replaced by all-electric ones. “Two years ago Bloomberg News folks projected that battery powered cars, electric cars would be cheaper than gas car cars as soon as 2027; they just had to revise that the other day and say, nope, that’s gonna happen in 2022, because batteries are getting cheaper.”

Overall, Foley is remarkably optimistic about the future precisely because of market forces. “That’s what I love about these tech disruptions, that solar and wind now are cheaper than coal. You don’t need Washington to tell us don’t burn coal. No one is going to burn coal anymore; the market won. Electric cars: the market will win again.”

“Project Drawdown was a dramatic breakthrough – extending our perspective beyond energy production and consumption to the underlying drivers of energy use. It opens up a whole range of new options to address climate change and puts those in context with all the traditional solutions,” says Bob Perkowitz, president of ecoAmerica.

Only time will tell whether climate change represents the “single biggest business opportunity in history” but Foley makes a good case—and he’s a good one to make it.

Deeply optimistic, I’m an author, educator and speaker; I call myself a champion of social good. Through my work, I hope to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems–poverty, disease and climate change. My books—read over 1 million times—on using money for good, personal finance, crowdfunding and corporate social responsibility draw on my experience as an investment banker, CFO, treasurer and mortgage broker. I have delivered a keynote speech at the United Nations and spoken in countries from Brazil to Russia and across the US. Previously, I worked on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee staff and earned an MBA at Cornell. Follow me on Twitter @devindthorpe. Reach me at forbes@devinthorpe.com.

Did you know that nearly one out of five public school teachers hold down a second job during the school year? According to EdWeek, half of teachers with second jobs currently work in a role outside of education, and 5% of teachers take on a second teaching or tutoring job outside of their school districts. Some teachers work 60 hours a week, and then take on second gigs. Across the country, teachers are renting out their homes across the country. In fact, according to a new study from Airbnb, one in 10 Airbnb hosts, or approximately 45,000 people who use the service are teachers……

We have proposed changes to achieve the greatest good in the longest term.

PIRatE Lab’s insight:

The biggest problem with the ESA is the intentional defunding of assessments and biological recovery plans…part of the motivation to give wider protection to “only” threatened species. To get to “threatened” is a major red alter. The author here hopes to convince you that this is some very preliminary stage of concern for species. The reality is that we need to act much more swiftly and decisively if we are to conserve a decent portion of our remaining biological heritage. These comments and arguments ring as hollow when coming from the administrators who seek increasing take of everything from wolves to sage grouse. The policies emanating from the Interior Department these days are all too often devoid of scientific basis and rely on anecdotal or cherry-picked data rather than objective interrogation.

Your annual marketing plan is the all-important, over-arching benchmark for your marketing goals for the next 12 months. It reveals where you are now and where you want to be in a year. It’s your roadmap that identifies priorities, what initiatives from last year you should shed, and both short and long-term expectations, as well as the plan B’s and plan C’s you can depend upon if plan A goes awry.

Most importantly, it helps to keep your organization’s marketing team united by a critical shared vision.

You have an annual marketing plan, right?

If you don’t, you’re not alone. Marketers aren’t exactly known for stellar long-term planning skills. About half of all marketers don’t have a clearly defined digital marketing plan and only 37 percent of B2B marketers have a documented content marketing strategy.

Let’s face it. Without an effective plan, however, it’s impossible to run an efficient ship – or to see things clearly. While you should definitely have your content marketing strategy mapped out, and planning out your digital marketing is also smart, it’s the eagle-eyed view the annual marketing plan provides that will help your team stay on course.

Here are some useful tips on how to create an annual marketing plan that will set your organization up for a great marketing ROI over the next year. Identify your end objectives and start working towards that plan to achieve them.

Start with Market Research

Market research is one of the biggest obstacles to creating a worthwhile annual marketing plan. Basically, it’s a lot of work.

Here’s the thing. It’s the foundation of your entire plan. If you don’t spend enough energy at this step, the rest of your plan may lack depth and your decisions for your marketing mix and strategy may lack direction.

So, put your back into the research to make sure you understand the pain points, motivators, goals and concerns of your current target market – as they are right now. These factors will keep changing, so keep doing your research.

This information isn’t just useful for creating your marketing plan every year. It’s what goes into your regular buyer persona updates and will help your team make smarter tactical decisions.

Keep your own customer surveys, interviews, and customer feedback at the heart of your research but outsourcing some of the work to a market research firm as well can help you get the depth your organization needs.

Today, social media and other online communities also are great source of data. You’ll find a lot of qualitative information on these channels by paying attention to the conversations circulating.

And then, of course, there are the new, AI-driven analysis tools, such as the algorithms made by Ayzenberg Group. We’ll likely see more artificial intelligence in the market research solutions sector so this is an area to keep an eye on.

Assess Your Market Situation

Next up: situational analysis. This part of your plan contains the current state of the market overall for your products or services, who your competitors are, and where your brand stands within the market. You also want to outline your organization’s strengths and weaknesses and look at your unique value proposition – has it been working for your marketing or does it need an upgrade?

All of these factors are constantly changing, which is another reason putting together an annual marketing plan is so critical. General changes to the market. Competitors getting a little too close for comfort to your competitive edge. A change in your organization’s market share.

When you know where you stand, it’s a lot easier to create practical goal priorities. For example, if you are dominating the market for your service this year, those lead generation and customer acquisition goals that were always so important should probably take a back seat to customer retention.

Set Your Marketing Goals

With a nice thick layer of market research and situational analysis, your plan is ready for the goal priorities. Which marketing objectives will matter the most over the next 12 months? You should focus on no more than three to five goals.

HubSpot’s 2017 State of Inbound report revealed the top priority for 70 percent of marketers is conversions, both converting to leads and customers. For 55 percent, it’s growing website traffic, and for 45 percent it’s increasing revenue from existing customers

Establish Your Marketing KPIs

One of the benefits of creating an annual marketing plan is it gives you the opportunity to review and refine the current parameters and assumptions you are using.

Still using the same key performance indicators you had in place last year, or worse yet, in 2012? Throw them out. Focusing your attention in the wrong areas or diffusing your energy with too many numbers is one of the surest ways to not hit your prime target – revenue growth.

When establishing the right KPIs for this year, here’s the rubix cube you need to work on – they should be aligned to and indicative of:

Marketing goals you’re trying to reach

Marketing challenges you’re trying to overcome

Business goals

When creating your annual plan, because you are looking at a relatively long period of time, your priority KPIs may change a bit as you reach certain benchmarks and move on to other parts of your strategy.

Build Your Strategies

And now for the meat and potatoes. For a lot of marketers, this is the fun part. It’s where you take each of your three to five goals, decide which strategy to use to reach that goal and then make a list of the tactics you are going to use.

For example:

Goal: Generate 30 percent more leads than last year

Strategy:

Increase engagement on social media

Boost website traffic

Offer more content

Tactics:

Publish one educational video a month on LinkedIn

Conduct extensive A/B testing to improve landing pages and email CTAs

Create a new eBook every quarter for download in exchange for newsletter sign up

Run one Facebook contest every quarter

Post one guest blog a month to increase the number of backlinks to company website

Stick to the Plan, Sort Of

When you have a solid, detailed marketing plan, priorities, next steps, and processes are clear, which makes everyone’s job a lot easier. But, your annual marketing plan shouldn’t be set in stone. Think of it as a roadmap, guiding you in a constantly changing landscape. As you continually keep an eye on market research and your KPIs, you may need to ‘evolve’ your marketing plan mid-year to make sure the strategies and tactics you use are driving the results your marketing should see.

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